Shut Up and Join the Party

We all need to achieve a balance between responsibility to pleasure and responsibility to pain. But we get to it from different directions: people on the front lines of the struggle have to keep their heads from going up in flames; privileged people like me have to keep their heads out of the sand.

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As a healthy white guy with a good job, living in one of the wealthiest countries on Planet Earth (indeed, in human history), I find it surprisingly easy to be optimistic and cheerful about life, the universe, and, well, pretty much everything—in fact, I’m tempted, at times, to conclude that everything’s great and wonderful and the whiners should all just shut up and join the party.

But then I remember the true identity of The Tempter, and I remember what became of Odysseus’s men in The Land of the Lotus Eaters, and I feel my blissful yoga-retreat ignorance giving way to something a little more grown-up, something akin to Buddha’s joyful participation in the sufferings of the world.

We all need to achieve the sort of balance Professor Kwame Brown speaks of—between responsibility to pleasure and responsibility to pain—but we get to it from different directions: people on the front lines of the struggle have to keep their heads from going up in flames; people like me have to keep their heads out of the sand.

About John Faithful Hamer

John Faithful Hamer is a college professor who still can't swim, drive, or pay his bills on time. His sense of direction is notoriously unreliable, yet he'd love to tell you where to go. His lack of practical skills is astounding, and his inability to fix things is renowned, yet he'd love to tell you what to do. His mismanagement of time is legendary, as is his inability to remember appointments, yet he fancies himself a philosopher and would love to tell you how to live. He wouldn't survive in a state of nature, of that we can be sure; but he's doing quite well in the big city, which has always been a refuge for the ridiculous, a haven for the helpless, and a friend to the frivolous.